POWER AND PROTEST IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY:
SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AND POLITICS
(7) Beats, Hippies, and the Movements of the
“Sixties”.
(Written for the original edition, published by Solidarity in June
1968.)
This is an
eye-witness account of two weeks spent in
The French events have a significance that extends far beyond the frontiers of
modern
For Stalinism too, a whole period is ending: The period during which Communist
Parties in
A full analysis of the French events will eventually have to be attempted, for,
without an understanding of modern society, it will never be possible
consciously to change it. But this analysis will have to wait for a while until
some of the dust has settled. What can be said now is that if honestly carried
out, such an analysis will compel many orthodox revolutionaries to discard a
mass of outdated slogans and myths to reassess contemporary reality;
particularly the reality of modern bureaucratic capitalism. its dynamic, its
methods of control and manipulation, the reasons for both its resilience and its
brittleness and - most important of all - the nature of its crises. Concepts
and organizations that have been found wanting will have to be discarded. The
new phenomena (new in themselves or new to traditional revolutionary theory)
will have to be recognised for what they are and interpreted in all their
implications, The real events of 1968 will then have to be integrated into a
new framework of ideas, for without this developmental revolutionary theory,
there can be no development of revolutionary practice - and in the long run no
transformation of society through the conscious actions of men.
The rue Gay-Lussac still carries the scars of the 'night of the
barricades'. Burnt out cars line the pavement, their carcasses a dirty grey
under the missing paint. The cobbles, cleared from the middle of the road, lie
in huge mounds on either side. A vague smell of tear gas still lingers in the
air.
At the junction with the rue des Ursulines lies a building site, its wire mesh
fence breached in several places. From here came material for at least a dozen
barricades: planks, wheelbarrows, metal drums, steel girders, cement mixers,
blocks of stone. The site also yielded a pneumatic drill. The students couldn't
use it, of course - not until a passing building worker showed them how,
perhaps the first worker actively to support the student revolt. Once broken.
the road surface provided cobbles, soon put to a variety of uses. All that is
already history.
People are walking up and down the street, as if trying to convince themselves
that it really happened. They aren't students. The students themselves know
what happened and why it happened. They aren't local inhabitants either, The
local inhabitants saw what happened, the viciousness of the CRS charges, the
assaults on the wounded, the attacks on innocent bystanders, the unleashed fury
of the state machine against those who had challenged it. The people in the
streets are the ordinary people of Paris, people from neighbouring districts,
horrified at what they have heard over the radio or read in their papers and
who have come for a walk on a fine Sunday morning to see for themselves. They
are talking in small clusters with the inhabitants of the rue Gay-Lussac. The
Revolution, having for a week held the university and the streets of the
On Friday 3 May the CRS had paid their historic visit to the forborne. They had
been invited in by Paul Roche, Hector of Paris University. The Rector had
almost certainly acted in connivance with Alain Peyrefitte, Minister of
Education, if not with the Elysee itself. Many students had been arrested,
beaten up, and several were summarily convicted.
The unbelievable - yet thoroughly predictable - ineptitude of this bureaucratic
'solution' to the 'problem' of student discontent triggered off a chain
reaction. It provided the pent-up anger, resentment and frustration of tens of
thousands of young people with both a reason for further action and with an attainable
objective. The students, evicted from the university, took to the street,
demanding the liberation of their comrades, the reopening of their faculties,
the withdrawal of the cops.
Layers upon layers of new people were soon drawn into the struggle. The student
union (UNEF) and the union representing university teaching staff (SNESUP)
called for an unlimited strike. For a week the students held their ground, in
ever bigger and more militant street demonstrations. On Tuesday 7 May 50,000
students and teachers marched through the streets behind a single banner: 'Vive
La Commune', and sang the Internationals at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, at
the Arc de Triomphe. On Friday 10 May students and teachers decided to occupy
the
Another inept gesture was needed. Another administrative reflex duly
materialised. Fouchet (Minister Of the interior) and Joxe (Deputy Prime
Minister) ordered Grimaud (Superintendent of the
In the rue Gay-Lussac and in adjoining streets, the battle-scarred wails carry
a dual message. They bear testimony to the incredible courage of those who held
the area for several hours against a deluge of tear gas, phosphorous grenades
and repeated charges of club-swinging CRS. But they also show something of what
the defenders were striving for...
Mural propaganda is an integral part of the revolutionary
On a hoarding, I see a large advertisement for a new brand of cheese; a child
biting into an enormous sandwich. 'C'est bon Ie fromage So-and-so' runs the
patter. Someone has covered the last few words with red paint. The poster reads
'C'est bon la Revolution'. People pass by, look, and smile.
I talk to my companion, a man of about 45, an 'old' revolutionary. We discuss
the tremendous possibilities now opening up. He suddenly turns towards me and
comes out with a memorable phrase:"To think one had to have kids and wait
20 years to see all this...'' We talk to others in the street, to young and
old, to the 'political' and the 'unpolitical', to people at all levels of
understanding and commitment. Everyone is prepared to talk - in fact everyone
wants to. They all seem remarkably articulate. We find no-one prepared to
defend the actions of the administration. The 'critics' fall into two main
groups'.
The 'progressive' university teachers, the Communists, and a number of students
see the main root of the student 'crisis' in the backwardness of the university
in relation to society's current needs, in the quantitative inadequacy of the
tuition provided, in the semi-feudal attitudes of some professors, and in the
general insufficiency of job opportunities. They see the University as
unadapted to the modern world. The remedy for them is adaptation: a modernising
reform which would sweep away the cobwebs, provide more teachers, better
lecture theatres, a bigger educational budget, perhaps a more liberal attitude
on the campus and, at the end of it all, an assured job.
The rebels (which include some but by no means all of the 'old'
revolutionaries) see this concern with adapting the university to modern
society as something of a diversion. For it is modern society itself which they
reject. They consider bourgeois life trivial and mediocre, repressive and
repressed. They have no yearning (but only contempt) for the administrative and
managerial careers it holds out for them. They are not seeking integration into
adult society. On the contrary, they are seeking a chance radically to contest
its adulteration. The driving force of their revolt is their own alienation,
the meaninglessness of life under modern bureaucratic capitalism. It is
certainly not a purely economic deterioration in their standard of living.
It is no accident that the 'revolution' started in the
The two types of 'criticism' of the modern French educational system do not
neutralism one another. On the contrary, each creates its own kind of problems
for the University authorities and for the officials at the Ministry of
Education. The real point is that one kind of criticism what one might call the
quantitative one - could in time be coped with by modern bourgeois society'.
The other - the qualitative one - never. This is what gives it its revolutionary
potential. The 'trouble with the University', for the powers that be, isn't
that money can't be found for more teachers. It can. The 'trouble' is that the
University is full of students - and that the heads of the students are full of
revolutionary ideas.
Among those we speak to there is a deep awareness that the problem cannot be
solved in the
The factory gales are wide open. Not a cop or supervisor in sight, The workers
stream in. A loud hailer tells them to proceed to their respective shops, to
refuse to start work and to proceed, at
As each worker goes through the gated, the pickets give him a leaflet, jointly
produced be the three unions.Leaflets in Spanish are also distributed (over
2000 Spanish workers are employed at Renault). French and Spanish orators
succeed one another, in shod spells, at the microphone. Although all the unions
are supporting the one-day strike, all the orators seem to belong to the CGT.
it's their loudspeaker...
The little café near the gales is packed. People seem unusually wide awake and
communicative for so early an hour, A newspaper kiosk is selling about three
copies of l'Humanité for every copy of anything else. The local branch of the
Communist Party is distributing a leaflet calling for 'resolution, calm,
vigilance and unity' and warning against 'provocateurs'.
The pickets make no attempt to argue with those pouring in. No-one seems to
know whether they will obey the strike call or not. Less than 25% of Renault
workers belong to any union at all. This is the biggest car factory in
At
Much invective (but no blows) are exchanged. In the course of an argument I
hear Bro. Trigon (delegate to the second electoral 'college' at Renault)
describe Danny Cohn-Bandit as ''un agent du pouvoir'' (an agent of the
authorities). A student takes him up on this point. The Trots don't. Shortly
before
At about the same time, hundreds of workers who had entered the factory leave
their shops and assemble in the sunshine in an open space a few hundred yards
inside the main gate. From there they amble towards Ile Seguin, crossing one
arm of the river
Some 10,000 workers are soon assembled in the shed. The orators address them
through a loudspeaker from a narrow platform some 40 feet up. The platform runs
in front of what looks like an elevated inspection post but which I am told is
a union office inside the factor. The CGT speaker deals with various sectional
wage claims. He denounces the resistance of the government ''in the hands of
the monopolies'', He produces facts and figures dealing with the wage
structure, Many highly skilled men are not getting enough. A CFDT speaker
follows him. He deals with the steady speed-up, with the worsening of working
conditions, with accidents and with the fate of man in production. "What
kind of life is this? Are we always to remain puppets, carrying out every whim of
the management?'' He advocates uniform wage increases for all ('augmentations
non-hiérarchisées'), An FO speaker follows. He is technically the most
competent, but says the least. In flowery rhetoric he talks of 1936, but omits
all reference to Léon Blum. The record of FO is bad in the factory and the
speaker is heckled from time to time, The CGT speakers then ask the workers to
participate en masse in the big rally planned for that afternoon. As the last
speaker finishes, the crowd spontaneously breaks out into a rousing
'Internationale', The older men seem to know most of the words. The younger
workers only know the chorus. A friend nearby assures me that in 20 years this
is the first time he has heard the song sung inside Renault (he has attended
dozens of mass meetings in the lle Seguin). There is an atmosphere of
excitement, particularly among the younger workers.
The crowd then breaks up into several sections. Some walk back over the bridge
and out of the factory. Others proceed systematically through the shops where a
few hundred blokes are still at work. Some of tees: men argue but most seem
only too glad for an excuse to stop and join in the procession. Gangs weave
their way, joking and singing, amid the giant presses and tanks. Those
remaining at work are ironically cheered, clapped or exhaled to ''step on it''
or ''work harder''. Occasional foremen look on helplessly, as One assembly line
after another is brought to a halt.
Many of the lathes have coloured pictures plastered over them: pin-ups and green
fields, sex and sunshine. Anyone still working is exhorted to get out into the
daylight, not just to dream about it, in the main plant, over half a mile long,
hardly 12 men remain in their overalls. Not an angry voice can be heard. There
is much good humoured banter. By 1l am thousands of workers have poured out
into the warmth of a morning in May. An open-air beer and sandwich stall,
outside the gate, is doing a roaring trade.
The streets are crowded, The response to the call for a 24-hour general
strike has exceeded the wildest hopes of the trade unions. Despite the short
notice
There is not a bus or car in sight. The streets of
A man suddenly appears carrying a suitcase full of duplicated leaflets. He
belongs to some left 'groupuscule' or other. He opens his suitcase and
distributes perhaps a dozen leaflets. But he doesn't have to continue alone.
There is an unquenchable thirst for information, ideas, literature, argument,
polemic. The man just stands there as people surround him and press forward to
get the leaflets. Dozens of demonstrators, without even reading the leaflet,
help him distribute them. Some 6000 copies get out in a few minutes. AII seem
to be assiduously read, People argue, laugh, joke. I witnessed such scenes
again and again.
Sellers of revolutionary literature are doing well. An edict, signed by the
organizers of the demonstration, that lathe only literature allowed would be
that of the organizations sponsoring the demonstration'' (see I'Humanité,
The whole Boulevard de Magenta is a solid seething mass of humanity. We can't
enter the Place de la République, already packed foil of demonstrators. One
can't even move along the pavements or through adjacent streets. Nothing but
people, as far as the eye can see. As we proceed slowly down the Boulevard de
Magenta, we notice on a third floor balcony, high on our right, an SFIO
(Socialist Party) headquarters, The balcony is bedecked with a few
decrepit-looking red flags and a banner proclaiming 'Solidarity with the
students'. A few elderly characters wave at us, somewhat self-consciously,
Someone in the crowd starts chanting ''O-pur-tu-nistes''. The slogan is taken
up, rhythmically roared by thousands, to the discomfiture of those on the
balcony who beat a hasty retreat, The people have not forgotten the use of the
CRS against the striking miners in 1958 by 'socialist' Minister of the Interior
Jules Moch, They remember the 'socialist' Prime Minister Guy Mollet and his
role during the Algerian War. Mercilessly, the crowd shows its contempt for the
discredited politicians now seeking to jump on the bandwagon. ''Guy Mollet, au
musée'', they shout, amid laughter. It is truly the end of an epoch. At about
3pm we at last reach the Place de Ia République, our point of departure, The
crowd here is so dense that several people faint and have to be carried into
neighbouring cafes, Here people are packed almost as tight as in the street,
but can at least avoid being injured, The window of one café gives way under
the pressure of the crowd outside, There is a genuine fear, in several pads of
the crowd, of being crushed to death. The first union contingents fortunately
begin to leave the square. There isn't a policeman in sight. Although the
demonstration has been announced as a joint one, the CGT leaders are still
striving desperately to avoid a mixing-up, on the streets, of students and
workers. In this they are moderately successful. By about 4.3Opm the students'
and teachers' contingent, perhaps 80,000 strong, finally leaves the Place de Ia
République, Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators have preceded it, hundreds
of thousands follow it, but the 'left' contingent has been well and truly
'bottled-in'. Several groups, understanding at last the CGT'S manoeuvre, break
loose once we are out of the square. They take shod cuts via various side
streets, at the double, and succeed in infiltrating groups of 100 or so into
pads of the march ahead of them or behind them. The Stalinist stewards walking
hand in hand an. hemming the march in on either side are powerless to prevent
these sudden influxes. The student demonstrators scatter like fish in water as
soon as they have entered a given contingent. The CGT marchers themselves are
quite friendly and readily assimilate the newcomers, not quite sure what it's
ail about, The students' appearances dress and speech does not enable them to be
identified as readily as they would be in Britain.
The main student contingent proceeds as a compact body. Now that we are past
the bottleneck of the Place de la République the pace is quite rapid. The
student group nevertheless takes at least half an hour to pass a given point.
The slogans of the students contrast strikingly with those of the CGT. The
students shout ''Le Pouvoir aux Ouvriers'' (All Power to the Workers); ''Le
Pouvoir est dens Ia rue'' (Power lies in the street)',"'Libérez nos camarades''.
COT members shout ''Pompidou, démission'' (Pompidou, resign). The students
chant "de Gaulle, assassin'', or 'ICRS-SS''. The CGT: ('Des soul, pas de
matraques'' (money, not police clubs) or ''Défense du pouvoir d'achat'' (Defend
our purchasing power) The students say "Non à l'Université de classe''.
The CGT and the Stalinist students, grouped around the banner of their paper
Claret reply "Université Démocratique''. Deep political differences lie
behind the differences of emphasis. some slogans are taken up by everyone,
slogans such as "Dix ens, c'est assez'' ,''A bas I'Etat policier'', or
''Bon anniversaire, mon Général''. Whole groups mournfully intone a well-known
refrain: ''Adieu, de Gaulle''. They wave their handkerchiefs, to the great
merriment of the bystanders. As the main student contingent crosses the Pont St
Michel to enter the
At the top of the Boulevard St Michel I drop out of the march, climb onto a
parapet lining the
I rejoin the march and we proceed towards Dented Rochereau. We pass several
statues, sedate gentlemen now bedecked with red flags or carrying slogans such
as 'Libérez nos camarades'. As we pass a hospital silence again descends on the
endless crowd. Someone starts whistling the 'lnternationale', Others take it
up. Like a breeze rustling over an enormous field of corn, the whistled tune
ripples out in all directions. From the windows of the hospital some nurses
wave at us.
At various intersections we pass traffic lights which by some strange inertia
still seem to be working. Red and green alternate, at fixed intervals, meaning
as little as bourgeois education, as work in modern society, as the lives of
those walking past. The reality of today, for a few hours, has submerged all of
yesterday's patterns. The part of the march in which l find myself is now
rapidly approaching what the organizers have decided should be the dispersal
point. The CGT is desperately keen that its hundreds of thousands of supposers
should disperse quietly, It fears them, when they are together. It wants them
nameless atoms again, scattered to the four corners of
At this stage I sample for the first time what a 'service d'ordre' composed of
Stalinist stewards really means. AII day, the stewards have obviously been
anticipating this particular moment. They are very tense, clearly expecting
'trouble'. Above all else they fear what they call 'débordement', ie being
outflanked on the left. For the last half-mile of the march five or six solid
rows of them line up on either side of the demonstrators. Arms linked, they
form a massive sheath around the marchers. CGT officials address the bottled-up
demonstrators through two powerful loudspeakers mounted on vans, instructing
them to disperse quietly via the Boulevard Arago, ie to proceed in precisely
the opposite direction to the one leading to the Champ de Mars. Other exits
from the Place Denfert Rochereau are blocked by lines of stewards linking arms
On occasions like this, l am told, the Communist Party calls up thousands of
its members from the
A respect for facts compels me to admit that most contingents followed the
orders of the trade union bureaucrats. The repeated slanders by the CGT and
Communist Party leaders had had their effect. The students were
''trouble-makers'' ''adventurers'' ''dubious elements''. Their proposed action
would only lead to a massive intervention by the CRS' (who had kept well out of
sight throughout the whole of the afternoon). "This was just a
demonstration, not a prelude to revolutions'' Playing ruthlessly on the most
backward sections of the crowd, and physically assaulting the more advanced
sections, the apparatchiks of the CGT succeeded in getting the bulk of the
demonstrators to disperse, often under protest. Thousands went to the Champ de
Mars, But hundreds of thousands went home. The Stalinists won the day, but the
arguments started will surely reverberate down the months to come.
At about
To do this, the stewards had had to engage in a running fight with several
hundred very angry marchers. The crowd then started rocking the stranded police
van. The remaining policeman drew his revolver and fired. People ducked. By a
miracle no-one was hit. A hundred yards away the bullet made a hole, about
three feet above ground level, in a window of 'Le Belfort', a big café at 297
Boulevard Raspail. The stewards again rushed to the rescue, forming a barrier
between the crowd and the police van, which was allowed to escape down a side
street, driven by the policeman who had fired at the crowd.
Hundreds of demonstrators then thronged round the hole in the window of the
cafe. Press photographers were summoned, arrived, duly took their close-ups -
none of which, of course, were ever published, (Two days later l'Humanité
carried a few lines about the episode, at the bottom of a column on page 5.)
One effect of the episode is that several thousand more demonstrators decided
not to disperse. They turned and marched down towards the Champ de Mars,
shouting ''lls ont tiré à Denfert'' (they've shot at us at Denfert). If the
incident had taken place an hour earlier, the evening of 13 May might have had
a very different complexion.
On Saturday 11 May, shortly before
The physical occupation of the Sorbonne was followed by an intellectual
explosion of unprecedented violence. Everything, literally everything, was
suddenly and simultaneously up for discussion, for question, for challenge.
There were no taboos. It is easy to criticise the chaotic upsurge of thoughts,
ideas and proposals unleashed in such circumstances. 'Professional revolutionaries'
and petty bourgeois philistines criticised to their heart's content. But in so
doing they only revealed how they themselves were trapped in the ideology of a
previous epoch and were incapable of transcending it. They failed to recognise the
tremendous significance of the new: of all that could not be apprehended within
their own pre-established intellectual categories. The phenomenon was witnessed
again and again, as it doubtless has been in every really great upheaval in
history.
Day and night, every lecture theatre was packed out, the seat of continuous,
passionate debate on every subject that ever preoccupied thinking humanity. No
formal lecturer ever enjoyed so massive an audience, was ever listened to with
such rapt attention - or given such short shrift if he talked nonsense. A kind
of order rapidly prevailed. By the second day a noticeboard had appeared near
the front entrance announcing what was being talked about, and where. l noted'.
'Organisation of the struggle'; 'Political and trade union rights in the
University'; 'University crisis or social crisis?'. 'Dossier of police
repression'; 'Self-management'; 'Non-selection' (or how to open the doors of
the University to everyone); 'Methods of teaching'; 'Exams', etc. Other lecture
theatres were given over to the students-workers liaison committees, soon to
'assume great importance. In yet other hales, discussions were under way on
'sexual repression', on 'the colonial question', on 'ideôlogy and
mystification', Any group of people wishing to discuss anything under the sun
would just take over one of the lecture theatres or smaller rooms. Fortunately
there were dozens of these. The first impression was of a gigantic lid suddenly
lifted, of pent-up thoughts and aspirations suddenly exploding, on being
released from the realm of dreams into the realm of the real and the possible.
In changing their environment people themselves were changed. Those who had
never dared say anything suddenly felt their thoughts to be the most important
thing in the world and said so. The shy became communicative. The helpless and
isolated suddenly discovered that collective power lay in their hands. The
traditionally apathetic suddenly realized the intensity of their involvement. A
tremendous surge of community and cohesion gripped those who had previously
seen themselves as isolated and impotent puppets, dominated by institutions
that they could neither control nor understand. People just went up and talked
to one another without a trace of self-consciousness. This state of euphoria
lasted throughout the whole fortnight I was there, An inscription scrawled on a
wall sums it up perfectly'. 'Déjà dix jours de bonheur' (ten days of happiness
already).
In the yard of the Sorbonne, politics (frowned on for a generation) took over
with a vengeance. Literature stalls sprouted up along the whole inner
perimeter, Enormous portraits appeared on the internal walls: Marx, Lenin,
Trotsky, Mao, Castro, Guevara, a revolutionary resurrection breaking the bounds
of time and place. Even Stalin put in a transient appearance (above a Maoist
stall) until it was tactfully suggested to the comrades that he wasn't really
at home in such company.
On the stalls themselves every kind of literature suddenly blossomed forth in
the summer sunshine: leaflets and pamphlets by anarchists, Stalinists, Maoists,
Trotskyists (three varieties), the PSU and the non-committed. The yard of the
Sorbonne had become a gigantic revolutionary drug-store, in which the most
esoteric products no longer had to be kept beneath the counter but could now be
prominently displayed. Old issues of journals, yellowed by the years, were
unearthed and often sold as well as more recent material. Everywhere there were
groups of 1 0 or 20 people, in heated discussion, people talking about the
barricades, about the CRST about their own experiences, but also about the
commune of 1871 , about 1905 and 1917, about the Italian left in 1921 and About
France in 1936. A fusion was taking place between the consciousness Of the
revolutionary minorities and the consciousness of whole new layers Of people,
dragged day by day into the maelstrom of political controversy. The students
were learning within days what it had taken others a lifetime to learn. Many
lichens came to see What it was all about. They too got sucked into the vortex.
I remember a boy of 14 explaining to an incredulous man of 60 why students
should have the right to depose professors.
Other things also happened. A large piano suddenly appeared In the great
central yard and remained there for several days. People would come and play on
it, surrounded by enthusiastic supposers. As people talked in the lecture
theatres of nee-capitalism and Of its techniques of manipulation, strands of
Chopin and bars of jazz, bits of La Carmagnole and atonal compositions wafted
through the air. One evening there was a drum recital, then some clarinet
players took over. These 'diversions' may have infuriated some of the more
single-minded revolutionaries, but they were as much part and parcel of the
total transformation of the Sorbonne as were the revolutionary doctrines being
proclaimed in the lecture hails. An exhibition of huge photographs of the
'night of the barricades' (in beautiful half-tones) appeared one morning,
mounted on stands. No-tine knew who had put it up. Everyone agreed that it
succinctly summarised the horror and glamour, the anger and promise of that
fateful night. Even the doors of the Chapel giving on to the yard were soon
covered with inscriptions: 'open this door - Finis, le tabernacles','Religion
is the last mystification'. Or more prosaically: 'We want somewhere to piss,
not somewhere to pray'. The massive outer walls of the Sorbonne were likewise
soon plastered with posters - posters announcing the first sit-in strikes, posters
describing the wage rates of whole sections of Paris workers, posters
announcing the next demonstrations, posters describing the solidarity marches
in Peking, posters denouncing the police repression and the use of CS gas (as
well as of ordinary tear-gas) against the demonstrators. There were posters,
dozens of them, warning students against the Communist Party's band-wagon
jumping tactics, telling them how it had attacked their movement and how it was
now seeking to assume its leadership. Political posters in plenty. But also
others, proclaiming the new ethos. A big one for instance near the main
entrance, boldly proclaimed 'Défense d'interdire' (Forbidding forbidden). And
others, equally to the point: 'Only the truth is revolutionary', 'Our revolution
is greater than ourselves', 'We refuse the role assigned to us, will not be
trained as police dogs'. People's concerns varied but converged. The posters
reflected the deeply libertarian prevailing philosophy: 'Humanity will only be
happy when the last capitalist has been strangled with the guts of the last
bureaucrat'', 'Culture is disintegrating. Create!','I take my wishes for
reality for I believe in the reality of my wishes'; or more simply,
'Creativity, spontaneity, life'. In the street outside, hundreds of passers-by
would stop to read these improvised wall-newspapers. Some gaped. Some sniggered
Some nodded assent. Some argued, Some, summoning their courage: actually
entered the erstwhile sacrosanct premises, as they were being exhorted to by
numerous posters proclaiming that the Sorbonne was now open to all, Young
workers who 'wouldn't have been seen in that place' a month ago now walked in
groups, at first rather self-consciously, later as if they owned the place,
which of course they did.
As the days went by, another kind of invasion took place -- the invasion by the
cynical and the unbelieving, or - more charitably - by those who 'had only come
to see'. It gradually gained momentum. At certain stages it threatened to
paralyse the serious work being done, part of which had to be hived off to the
Faculty of Letters, at Censing, also occupied by the students. It was felt
necessary, however, for the doors to be kept open, 24 hours a day. The message
certainly spread. Deputations came first from other universities, then from
high schools, later from factories and offices, to look, to question, to argue,
to study.
The most telling sign, however, of the new and heady climate was to be found on
the wails of the Sorbonne corridors. Around the main lecture theatres there is
a maze of such corridors', dark, dusty, depressing, and hitherto unnoticed
passageways leading from nowhere in particular to nowhere else. Suddenly these
corridors sprang to life in a firework of luminous mural wisdom - much of it of
Situationist inspiration. Hundreds of people suddenly stopped to read such
pearls as: 'Do not consume Marx. Live it'; 'The future will only contain what
we put into it now'; 'When examined. we will answer with questions'',
'Professors, you make us feel old' ; 'One doesn't compose with a society in
decomposition'', 'We must remain the unadapted ones'; 'Workers of all lands,
enjoy yourselves' : 'Those who carry out a revolution only half-way through
merely dig themselves a tomb (St Just), 'Please leave the PC (Communist Party)
as clean on leaving as you would like to find it on entering '; 'The tears of
the philistines are the nectar of the gods',' 'GO and die in Naples. with the
Club Mediterranée'; 'Long live communication, down with telecommunication' '
'Masochism today dresses up as reformism ; We will claim nothing. We will ask
for nothing. We will take. We will occupy'; 'The only outrage to the Tomb of
the Unknown Soldier was the outrage that put him there'', 'No, we won't be
picked up by the Great Party of the Working Class', And a big inscription, well
displayed'. 'Since 1936 l have fought for wage increases, My father, before me,
also fought for wage increases. Now I have a telly, a fridge, a Volkswagen. Yet
all in all, my life has always been a dog's life. Don't discuss with the
bosses. Eliminate them.'
Day after day the courtyard and corridors are crammed, the scene of an
incessant bi-directional flow to every conceivable part of the enormous
building. It may look like chaos, but it is the chaos of a beehive or of an
anthill. A new structure is gradually being evolved. A canteen has been
organised in one big hall, people pay what they can afford for glasses of
orange juice, 'menthe', or 'grenadine' and for ham or sausage rolls. l enquire
whether costs are covered and am toad they more or less break even. In another
part of the building a children's creche has been set up, elsewhere a first-aid
station, elsewhere a dormitory. Regular sweeping-up rotas are organised. Rooms
are allocated to the Occupation Committee, to the Press Committee, to the
Propaganda Committee, to the student- worker liaison committees, to the
committees dealing with foreign students, to the action committees of Lyceens,
to the committees dealing with the allocation of premises, and to the numerous
commissions undertaking special projects such as the compiling of a dossier on
police atrocities, the study of the implications of autonomy, of the
examination system, etc. Anyone seeking work can readily find it. The
composition of the committees was very variable. It often changed from day to
day, as the committees gradually found their feel. To those who pressed for
instant solutions to every problem it would be answered: "patience,
comrade give us a chance to evolve an alternative. The bourgeoisie has
controlled this university for nearly two centuries. It has solved nothing. We
are building from rock bottom, We need a month or two...''
Confronted with this tremendous explosion which it had neither foreseen nor
been able to control the Communist Party tried desperately to salvage what it
could of its shattered reputation. Between 3 May and 13 May every issue of
I'Humanité had carried paragraphs either attacking the students or making slimy
innuendoes about them. Now the line suddenly changed, The Party sent dozens of
its best agitators into the Sorbonne to 'explain' its case. The case was a
simple one. The Party 'supported the students' - even if there were a few
'dubious elements' in their leadership. It 'always had'. It always would.
Amazing scenes followed. Every Stalinist 'agitator' would immediately be
surrounded by a large group of well-informed young people, denouncing the
Party's counter-revolutionary role. A wall-paper had been put up by the
comrades of Volà Ouvrière on which had been posted, day by day, every statement
attacking the students to have appeared in I'Humanite- or in any of a dozen
Party leaflets. The 'agitators' couldn't get a word in edgeways. They would be
jumped on (non-violently). ''The evidence was over there, comrade. Would the
Party comrades like to come and read just exactly what the Party had been
saying not a week ago? Perhaps I'Humanité would like to grant the students
space to reply to some of the accusations made against them?'' Others in the
audience would then bring up the Party's role during the Algerian War, during
the miners' strike of 1958, during the years of 'tripartisme' (1945-1947).
Wriggle as they tried, the 'agitators' just could not escape this kind of
'instant education'. It was interesting to note that the Party could not
entrust this 'salvaging' operation to its younger, student members. Only the
'older comrades' could safely venture into this hornets' nest. So much so that
people would say that anyone in the Sorbonne over the age of 40 was either a
copper's nark or a stalinist stooge. The most dramatic periods of the
occupation were undoubtedly the 'Assemblées Générales', or plenary sessions,
held every' night in the giant amphitheatre. This was the soviet, the ultimate
source of all decisions, the fount and origin of direct democracy. The
amphitheatre could seat up to 5000 people in its enormous hemicycle, surmounted
by three balcony tiers. As often as not every seat was taken and the crowd
would flow up the aisles and onto the podium, A black flag and a red one hung
over the simple wooden table at which the chairman sat. Having seen meetings of
50 break up in chaos it is an amazing experience to see a meeting of 5000 get
down to business. Real events determined the themes and ensured that most of the
talk was down to earth.
The topic having been decided, everyone was allowed to speak. Most speeches
were made from the podium but some from the body of the hall or from the
balconies. The loudspeaker equipment usually worked but sometimes didn't. Some speakers
could command immediate attention, without even raising their voice. Others
would instantly provoke a hostile response by the stridency of their tone,
their insincerity or their more or less obvious attempts at manoeuvring the
assembly. Anyone who waffled, or reminisced, or came to recite a set-piece, or
talked in terms of slogans, was given shod shrift by the audience, politically
the most sophisticated I have ever seen. Anyone making practical suggestions
was listened to attentively. So were those who sought to interpret the movement
in terms of its own experience or to point the way ahead.
Most speakers were granted three minutes, Some were allowed much more by
popular acclaim. The crowd itself exerted a tremendous control on the platform
and on the speakers. A two-way relationship emerged very quickly. The political
maturity of the Assembly was shown most strikingly in its rapid realization
that booing or cheering during speeches slowed down the Assembly's own
deliberations. Positive speeches were loudly cheered - at the end. Demagogic or
useless ones were impatiently swept aside, Conscious revolutionary minorities
played an important catalytic role in these deliberations, but never sought -
at least the more intelligent ones - to impose their will on the mass body.
Although in the early stages the Assembly had its fair share of exhibited
nests, provocateurs and nuts, the overhead costs of direct democracy were not
as heavy as one might have expected.
There were moments of excitement and moments of exhortation. On the night of 13
May, after the massive march through the streets of
This brought the house down. The only ones who didn't rise to cheer were a few
dozen Stalinists. Also, revealingly, those Trotskyists who tacitly accepted the
Stalinist conceptions - and whose only quarrel with the CP is that it had
excluded them from being one of the 'sponsoring organisations'. That same night
the Assembly took three important decisions. From now on the Sorbonne would
constitute itself as a revolutionary headquarters ('Smolny', someone shouted).
Those who worked there would devote their main efforts not to a mere
re-organisation of the educational system, but to a total subversion of
bourgeois society. From now on the University would be open to all those who
subscribed to these aims. The proposals having been accepted the audience rose
to a man and sang the loudest, most impassioned 'Internationale' I have ever
heard. The echoes must have reverberated as far as the
At the same time as the students occupied the Sorbonne, they also took
over the 'Centre Censier' (the new Paris University Faculty of Letters).
Censier is an enormous, ultra-modern, steel-concrete-and-glass affair situated
at the south-east corner of the
To many, the Paris May Days must have seen an essentially nocturnal affair:
nocturnal battles with the CRS, nocturnal barricades, nocturnal debates in the
great amphitheaters. But this was but one side of the coin. While some argued
late into the Sorbonne night? others went to bed early for in the mornings they
would be handing out leaflets at factory gales or in the suburbs, leaflets that
had to be drafted, typed, duplicated, and the distribution of which had to be
carefully organised. This patient, systematic work was done at Censier. It
contributed in no small measure to giving the new revolutionary consciousness
articulate expression.
Soon after Censier had been occupied a group of activists comandeered a large
part of the third floor. This space was to be the headquarters of their
proposed 'worker-student action committees'. The general idea was to establish
links with groups of workers, however small: who shared the general
libertarian- revolutionary outlook of this group of students. Contact having
been made, workers and students would cc-operate in the joint drafting of
leaflets. The leaflets would discuss the immediate problems of particular
groups of workers, but in the light of what the students had shown to be
possible. A given leaflet would then be jointly distributed by workers and
students, outside the navicular factory or office to which it referred, In some
instances the distribution would have to be undertaken by students alone, in
others hardly a single student would be needed, What brought the Censing
comrades together was a deeply-felt sense of the revolutionary potentialities
of the situation and the knowledge that they had no time to waste. They all
felt the pressing need for direct action propaganda, and that the urgency of
the situation required of them that they transcend any doctrinal differences
they might have with one another. They were all intensely' political people. By
and large, their politics were those of that new and increasingly important
historical species: the ex- members of one or other revolutionary organization.
What were their views? Basically they boiled down to a few simple propositions.
What was needed just now was a rapid, autonomous development of the working
class struggle, the setting up of elected strike committees which would link
union and non-union members in all strike-bound. plants and enterprises,
regular meetings of the strikers so that the fundamental decisions remained in
the hands of the rank and file, workers' defence committees to defend pickets
from police intimidation, a constant dialogue with the revolutionary students
aimed at restoring to the working class its own tradition of direct democracy
and its own aspiration to self-management (auto- gestion), usurped by the
bureaucracies of the trade unions and the political parties, For a whole week
the various Trotskyist and Maoist factions didn't even notice what was going on
at Censier. They spent their time in public and often acrimonious debates at
the Sorbonne as to who could provide the best leadership. Meanwhile, the
comrades at Censier were steadily getting on with the work. The majority of
them had 'been through' either Stalinist or Trotskyist organizations. They had
left behind them all ideas to the effect that 'intervention' was meaningful
only in terms of potential recruitment to their own particular group. AIl
recognised the need for a widely-based and moderately structured revolutionary
movement, but none of them saw the building of such a movement as an immediate,
all important task, on which propaganda should immediately be centred.
Duplicators belonging to 'subversive elements' were brought in. University
duplicators were commandeered. Stocks of paper and ink were obtained from
various sources and by various means. Leaflets began to pour out. first in
hundreds, then in thousands, then in tens of thousands as links were
established with one group of rank and file workers after another, On the first
day alone, Renault, Citroen, Air France, Boussac, the Nouvelles Messageries de
Presse, Rhone- Poulenc and the RATP (Métro) were contacted. The movement then
snowballed.
Every evening at Censier, the action committees reported back to an 'Assemblée
Générale' devoted exclusively to this kind of work. The reactions to the
distribution were assessed, the content of future leaflets discussed. These
discussions would usually be led off by the worker contact who would describe
the impact of the leaflet on his workmates. The most heated discussion centred
on whether direct attacks should be made on the leaders of the CGT or whether
mere suggestions as to what was needed to win would be sufficient to expose
everything the union leaders had (or hadn't) done and everything they stood
for. The second viewpoint prevailed. The leaflets were usually very short,
never more than 200 or 300 words. They nearly ail started by listing the
workers' grievances - or just by describing their conditions of work. They
would end by inviting workers to call at Censier or at the Sorbonne.
"These places are now yours, Come there to discuss your problems with
others. Take a hand yourselves in making known your problems and demands to
those around you.'' Between this kind of opening and this kind of conclusion,
most leaflets contained one or two key political points. The response was
instantaneous. More and more workers dropped in to draft joint leaflets with
the students. Soon there was no lecture room big enough for the daily
'Assemblée Générale'. The students learned a great deal from the workers'
self-discipline and from the systematic way in which they presented their
reports. It was all so different from the 'in-fighting' of the political sects.
There was agreement that these were the finest lectures held at Censier!
Among the more telling lines of these leaflets, I noted the following', Air
France leaflet ''We refuse to accept a degrading 'modernisation' which means we
are constantly watched and have to submit to conditions which are harmful to
our health, to our nervous systems and an insult to our status of human
beings... We refuse to entrust our demands any longer to professional trade
union leaders. Like the students, we must take the control of our affairs into
our own hands.'' Renault leaflet "If we want our wage increases and our
claims concerning conditions of work to be secure, if we don't want them
constantly threatened, we must now struggle for a fundamental change in
society... As workers we should ourselves seek to control the operation of our
enterprises. Our objectives are similar to those of the students. The
management (gestion) of industry and the management of the university should be
democratically ensured by those who work there...'' Rhone-poulenc leaflet ''Up
till now we tried to solve our problems through petitions, partial struggles,
the election of better leaders. This has led us nowhere. The action of the students
has shown us that only rank and file action could compel the authorities to
retreat... the students are challenging the whole purpose of bourgeois
education. They want to take the fundamental decisions themselves. So should
we.We should decide the purpose of production, and at whose cost production
will be carried out.'' District leaflet (distributed in the streets at Boulogne
Billancoud) ''The government fears the extension of the movement. It fears the
developing unity between workers and students. Pompidou has announced that
"the government will defend the Republic. The Army and police are being
prepared, De Gaulle will speak on the 24th. Will he send the CRS to clear
pickets out of strikebound plants? Be prepared. In workshops and faculties,
think in terms of self- defence,..'' Every day dozens of such leaflets were
discussed, typed, duplicated, distributed. Every evening we heard of the
response: ''The blokes think it's tremendous. It's just what they are thinking.
The union officials never talk like this''. ''The blokes liked the leaflet.
They are sceptical about the 12%. They say prices will go up and that we'll
lose it all in a few months. Some say let's push all together now and take on
the lot,'' ''The leaflet certainly staged the lads talking. They've never had
so much to say. The officials had to wait their turn to speak...''
I vividly remember a young printing worker who said one night that these
meetings were the most exciting thing that had ever happened to him. AII his
life he had dreamed of meeting people who thought and spoke like this. But
every time he thought he had met one all they were interested in was what they
could get out of him. This was the first time he had been offered disinterested
help. I don't know what has happened at Censier since the end of May. When I
left, sundry Trots were beginning to move in, ''to politicize the leaflets''
(by which I presume they meant that the leaflets should now talk about
"the need to build the revolutionary Party''). If they succeed - which I
doubt, knowing the calibre of the Censier comrades - it will be a tragedy.
The leaflets were in fact political. During the whole of my short stay in
France I saw nothing more intensely and relevantly political (in the best sense
of the term) than the sustained campaign emanating from Censier, a campaign for
constant control of the struggle from below, for self-defence, for workers'
management of production, for popularizing the concept of workers' councils,
for explaining to one and all the tremendous relevance, in a revolutionary
situation, of revolutionary demands, of organised self-activity, of collective
self-reliance.
As I left Censier I could not help thinking how the place epitomized the crisis
of modern bureaucratic capitalism. Censier is no educational slum. It is an
ultra-modern building, one of the showpieces of Gaullist 'grandeur'. It has
closed-circuit television in the lecture theatres, modern plumbing, and slot
machines distributing 24 different kinds of food ,in sterilized containers and 10
different kinds of drink. Over 90% of the students there are of petty bourgeois
or bourgeois backgrounds. Yet such is their rejection of the society that
nurtured them that they were working duplicators 24 hours a day, turning out a
flood of revolutionary literature of a kind no modern city has ever had pushed
into it before. This kind of activity had transformed these students and had
contributed to transforming the environment around them. They were
simultaneously disrupting the social structure and having the time of their
lives. In the words of a slogan scrawled on the wall: 'On n'est pas If pour
s'emmerder' (you'll have to look this one up in the dictionary).
When the news of the first factory occupation (that of the Sud Aviation
plant at
On Thursday 16 May the Renault factories at Cléon (near
Early on the Friday afternoon an emergency 'General Assembly' was held. The
meeting decided to send a big student deputation to the occupied Renault works.
lts aim was to establish contact, express student solidarity and, if possible,
discuss common problems. The march was scheduled to leave the Place de la
Sorbonne at
The distortion and dishonesty of this leaflet defy description. No-one intended
to instruct the workers how to run the strike and no student would have the
presumption to seek to assume its leadership. AlI that the students wanted was
to express solidarity with the workers in what was now a common struggle
against the state and the employing class.
The CGT leaflet came like an icy shower to the less political students and to
all those who still had illusions about Stalinism. ''They won't let us get
through.'' ''The workers don't want to talk with us.'' The identification of
workers with 'their' organizations is very hard to break down. Several hundred
who had intended to march to Billancoud were probably put off, The UNEF
vacillated, reluctant to lead the march in direct violation of the wishes of
the CGT. Finally some 1500 people set out, under a single banner, hastily
prepared by some Maoist students. The banner proclaimers 'The strong hands of
the working class must now take over the torch from the fragile hands of the
students'. Many joined the march who were not Maoists and who didn't
necessarily agree with this particular formulation of its objectives.
Although small when compared to other marches, this was certainly a most
political one. Practically everyone on it belonged to one or other of the
'groupuscules': a spontaneous united front of Maoists, Trotskyists, anarchists,
the comrades of the Mouvement du 22 Mars and various others. Everyone knew
exactly what he was doing. It was this that was so to infuriate the Communist
Party. The march sets off noisily, crosses the Boulevard St Michel, and passes
in front of the occupied Odeon Theatre (where several hundred more joyfully
join it). It then proceeds at a very brisk pace down the rue de Vaugirard, the
longest street in
Slogans such as ''Avec nous, chez Renault'' (come with us to Renault), ''Le
pouvoir est dans la rue'' (power lies in the street), Le pouvoir aux ouvriers''
(power to the workers) are shouted lustily, again and again. The Maoists shout
''A bàs Ie gouvernement gaulliste anti-populaire de chomage et de misère'' - a
long and 'politically equivocal slogan, but one eminently suited to collective
shouting. The Internationals bursts out repeatedly, sung this time by people
who seem to know the words - even the second verse! By the time we have marched
the five milks to Issy-les-Moulineaux it is already dark. Way behind us now are
the bright lights of the
On we go, a few miles more. There isn't a gendarme in sight. We cross the
Part of the factory now looms up right ahead of us, three storeys high on our
left, two storeys high on our right, In front of us, there is a giant metal
gate, closed and bolted. A large first floor window to our right is crowded
with workers. The front row sit with their legs dangling over the sill. Several
seem in their teens', one of them waves a big red flag. There are no
'tricolores' in sight - no ideal allegiance' as in other occupied places I had
seen. Several dozen more workers are on the roofs of the two buildings. We
wave. They wave back. We sing the 'Internationale'. They join in. We give the
clenched fist salute. They do likewise. Everybody cheers. Contact has been
made. An interesting exchange takes place. A group of demonstrators stabs
shouting "Les usines aux ouvriers'' (the factories to the workers). The
slogan spreads like wildfire through the crowd. The Maoists, now in a definite
minority, are rather annoyed. (According to Chairman Mao, workers' control is a
petty-bourgeois, anarcho- syndicaiist deviation.) "les usines aux
ouvriers''..10, 20 times the slogan reverberates round the Place Nationals,
taken up by a crowd now some 3000 strong.
As the shouting subsides, a lone voice from one of the Renault roofs shouts
back'. ''La Sorbonne aux Etudiants''. Other workers on the same roof take it
up. Then those on the other roof. By the volume of their voices they must be at
beast 100 of them, on top of each building. There is then a moment of silence.
Everyone thinks the exchange has come to an end. But one of the demonstrators
starts chanting'. ''La Sorbonne aux ouvriers''. Amid general laughter, everyone
joins in.
We start talking. A rope is quickly passed down from the window, a bucket at
the end of it, Bottles of beer and packets of fags are passed up. Also
revolutionary leaflets. Also bundles of papers (mainly copies of Server Ie
Peuple - a Maoist journal carrying a big title 'Vive la CGT'). At street level
there are a number of gaps in the metal facade of the building. Groups of
students cluster at these half-dozen openings and talk to groups of workers on
the other side. They discuss wages, conditions, the CRS, what the lads inside
need most, how the students can help. The men talk freely. They are not Party
members. They think the constant talk of provocateurs a bit far-fetched. But
the machines must be protected. We point out that two or three students inside
the factory, escorted by the strike committee, couldn't possibly damage the
machines. They agree. We contrast the widely open doors of the Sorbonne with
the heavy locks and bolts on the Renault bates - closed by the CGT officials to
prevent the ideological contamination of 'their' militants. How silly, we say,
to have to talk through these stupid little slits in the wall.
Again they agree. They will put it to their 'dirigeants' (leaders), No-one
seems, as yet, to think beyond this. There is then a diversion. A hundred yards
away a member of the FER gets up on a parked car and starts making a speech
through a Ioud hailer. The intervention is completely out of tune with the
dialogue that is just starting. it's the same gramophone record we have been
hearing all week at the Sorbonne. ''CaII on the union leaders to organism the
election of strike committees in every factory. Force the union leaders to
federate the strike committees. Force the union leaders to set up a national
strike committee. Force them to call a general strike throughout the whole of
the country'' (this at a time when millions of workers are already on strike
without any call whatsoever). The tone is strident, almost hysterical, the
misjudging of the mood monumental. The demonstrators themselves drown the
speaker in a loud 'Internationale'. As the last bar fades the Trotskyist tries
again. Again the demonstrators drown him, Groups stroll up the Avenue Yves
Kermen, to the other entrances to the factory. Real contact is here more
difficult to establish. There is a crowd outside the gate, but most of them are
Party members. Some won't talk at all, Others just talk slogans.
We walk back to the Square. It is now well past
Students? Well, hats off to anyone who can thump the cops that hard! The lads
tell up two of their mates had disappeared from the factory altogether 10 days
ago "to help the Revolution''. Left family, jobs, everything. And good
luck to them. "A chance like this comes once in a lifetime.'' We discuss
plans, how to develop the movement. The occupied factory could be a ghetto,
'isolant Ies durs' (isolating the most militant). We talk about camping, the
cinema, the Sorbonne, the future. Almost until sunrise... 'Attention aux
provocateurs'
Social upheavals, such as the one
The full implications of the role of the PCF and of the CGT have yet to be
appreciated by British revolutionaries, They need above all else to be
informed. In this section we will document the role of the PCF to the best of
our ability, It is important to realise that for every ounce of shit thrown at
the students in its official publications, the Party poured tons more over them
at meetings or in private conversations. In the nature of things it is more
difficult to document this kind of slander.
A meeting was called in the yard of the Sorbonne by UNEF, JCR, MAU and FER to
protest at the closure of the
Not satisfied with the
agitation they are conducting in the student milieu - and agitation which is
against the interests of the mass of the students and favours fascist
provocateurs - these pseudo- revolutionaries now have the nerve to seek to give
lessons to the working class movement. We find them in increasing numbers at
the gales of factories and in places where immigrant workers live, distributing
leaflets and other propaganda. These false revolutionaries must be unmasked,
for objectively they are serving the interests of the Gaullist power and of the
big capitalist monopolies.''
The police have been occupying the
UNEF and SNESUP call on their supporters to start an unlimited strike. Before
discussions with the authorities begin they insist on: ' a. a stop to all legal
action against the students and workers who have been questioned, arrested or
convicted in the course of the demonstrations of the last few days! b. the
withdrawal of the police from the Latin Quaker and from all University premises,
c. a reopening of the closed faculties.
In a statement showing how completely out of touch they were with the deep
motives of the student revolt, the 'Elected Communist Representatives of the
Paris region' declared in I'Humanité:
''The shortage of credits, of
premises, of equipment, of teachers...prevent three students out of four from
completing their studies, without mentioning all those who never have access to
higher education... This situation has caused profound and legitimate
discontent among both students and teachers. It has also favoured the activity
of irresponsible groups whose conceptions can offer no solution to the
students' problems. It is intolerable that the government should take advantage
of the behaviour of an infinitesimal minority to stop the studies of tens of
thousands of students a few days from the exams...''. The same issue of
I'Humanité carried a statement from the 'Sorbonne-Lettres' (teachers) branch of
the Communist Party: ''The Communist teachers demand the liberation of the
arrested students and the reopening of the Sorbonne. Conscious of our
responsibilities, we specify that this solidarity does not mean that we agree
with or support the slogans emanating from certain student organizations. We
disapprove of unrealistic, demagogic and anti-communist slogans and of the
unwarranted methods of action advocated by various leftist groups.''
On the same day Georges Séguy, general secretary of the CGT, spoke to
the Press about the programme of the Festival of Working Class Youth (scheduled
for May 17-19, but subsequently cancelled):
''The solidarity between students, teachers and the working class is a familiar
notion to the militants of the CGT.., It is precisely this tradition that
compels us not to tolerate any dubious or provocative elements, elements which
criticise the working class organisations---''.
A big students' demonstration called by UNEF has taken place in the streets of
''The discontent of the
students is legitimate. But the situation favours adventuring activities, whose
conception offers no perspective to the students and has nothing in common with
a really progressive and forward-looking policy,'' In the same issue, J M
Cabala, general secretary of the UEC (Union des Etudiants Communistes) writes
that: ''the actions of irresponsible groups are assisting the Establishment in
its aims... What we must do is ask for a bigger educational budget which would
ensure bigger student grants, the appointment of more and better qualified
teachers, the building of new faculties...''
The UJCF (Union des Jeunesses Communistes de France) and the UJFF (Union
des Jeunes Filies Françaises) distribute a leaflet in a number of lycees.
L'Humanité quotes it approvingly'..
"We protest against the
police violence unleashed against the students. We demand the reopening of
Over the weekend Pompidou has climbed down. But the unionsr the UNEF and the
teachers have decided to maintain their call for a one-day, general strike. On
its front page l'Humanité publishes, in enormous headlines, a call for the
24-hour strike followed by a statement from the Political Bureau'.
The unity of the working class and of the students threatens the regime... This
creates an enormous problem. It is essential that no provocation, no diversion
should be allowed to divert any of the forces struggling against the regime or
should give the government the flimsiest pretext to distort the meaning of this
great fight. The Communist Party associates itself without reservation with the
just struggle of the students...''
The enormous Monday demonstrations in
The People of Paris marched
for hours in the streets of the capital showing a power which made any
provocation impossible. The Party organizations worked day and night to ensure
that this great demonstration of workers, teachers and students should take
place in maximum unity, strength and discipline... It is now clear that the
Establishment confronted with the protests and collective action of all the
main sections of the population, will seek to divide us in the hope of beating
us. It will resort to all methods, including provocation. The Political Bureau
warns workers and students against any adventuress endeavours which might, in
the present circumstances, dislocate the broad front of the struggle which is
in the process of developing, and provide the Gaullist power with an unexpected
weapon with which to consolidate its shaky ruIe...''
Over the past 48 hours, strikes with factory occupations have spread like a
trail of gunpowder, from one corner of the country to the other. The railways
are paralysed, civil airports fly the red flag. ('provocateurs' have obviously
been at work!) L'Humanité publishes on its front page a declaration from the
National Committee of the CGT:
From hour to hour strikes and
factory occupations are spreading. This action, started on the initiative of
the CGT and of other trade union organizations (sic), creates a new situation
of exceptional importance... Long- accumalated popular discontent is now
finding expression. The questions being asked must be answered seriously and
full notice taken of their importance. The evolution of the situation is giving
a new dimension to the struggle... While multiplying its efforts to raise the
struggle to the needed level, the National Committee warns all CGT militants
and local groups against any attempts by outside groups to meddle in the conduct
of the struggle, and against all arts of provocation which might assist the
forces Of repression in their attempts to thwart the development of the
movement..''
The same issue of the paper devoted a whole page to warning students of
the fallacy of any notions of 'student power' - en passant - attributing to the
'Mouvement du 22 Mars' a whole series of political positions they had never
held. Monday 20 May The whole country is totally paralysed. The Communist Patly
is still warning about 'provocations'. The top right hand corner of I'Humanité
contains a böx labelled 'WARNING'':
Leafiets have been distributed in the Paris area calling for an insurrectionary
general strike, it goes without saying that such appeals have not been issued
by our democratic trade union organizations. They are the work of provocateurs
seeking to provide the government with a pretext for intervention... The
workers must be vigilant to defeat all such manoeuvres...'''
In the same issue, Etienne Fajon of the Central Committee, continues the
warnings'..
''The Establishment's main preoccupation at the moment is to divide the ranks
of the working class and to divide it from other sections of the population...
Our Political Bureau has warned workers and students, from the very beginning, against
venturing slogans capable of dislocating the broad front of the struggle.
Several provocations have thus been prevented. Our political vigilance must
clearly be maintained...''.
The same issue devoted its central pages to an interview of Mr Georges Séguy,
general secretary of, the CGT, conducted over the Europe No 1 radio network. In
these live interviews, various listeners phoned questions in directly. The
following exchanges are worth recording:
Question Mr Séguy, the workers on strike are everywhere saying that they will
go the whole hog. What do you mean by this? What are your objectives?''
Answer,The strike is so powerful that the workers obviously mean to obtain the
maximum concessions at the end of such a movement. The whole hog for us trade unionists,
means winning the demands that we have always fought for,but which the
government and the employers have always refused to consider. They have opposed
an obtuse intransigence to the proposals for negotiations which we have
repeatedly made. ''The whole hog means a general rise in wages (no wages less
than 600 francs per month), guaranteed employment, an earlier retirement age,
reduction of working hours without loss of wages and the defence and extension
of trade union rights within the factory. I am not putting these demands in any
particular order because we attach the same importance to all of them.''.
Question If I am not mistaken the statutes of the CGT declare its aims to be
the overthrow of capitalism and its replacement by socialism. In the present
circumstances, that you have yourself referred to as 'exceptional' and
'important', why doesn't the COT seize this unique chance of calling for its
fundamental objectives?''
Answer ''This is a very interesting question. I like it very much, It is true
that the CGT offer: the workers a concept of trade unionism that we consider
the most revolutionary insofar as its final objective is the end of the
employing class and of wage labour. It is true that this is the first of our
statutes, It remains fundamentally the CGT'S objective. But can the present
movement reach this objective? lf it became obvious that it could, we would be
ready to assume our responsibilities. It remains to be seen whether all the
social strata involved in the present movement are ready to go that far''
Question Since fast week's events l have gone everywhere where people are
arguing. I went this afternoon to the Odeon Theatre. Masses of people were
discussing there, I can assure you that all the classes who suffer from the
present regime were represented there. When I asked whether people thought that
the movement should go further than the small demands put forward by the trade
unions for the last 10 or 20 years, I brought the house down. l therefore think
that it would be criminal to miss the present opportunity, It would be criminal
because sooner or later this will have to be done. The conditions of today
might aglow us to do it peacefully and calmly and will perhaps never come back.
I think this call must be made by you and the other political organizations.
These political organizations are not your business, of course, but the CGT is
a revolutionary organization. You must bring out your revolutionary flag. The
workers are astounded to see you so timid''
Answer While you were bathing in the Odeon fever, I was in the factories.
Amongst workers. l assure you that the answer I am giving you is the answer of
a leader of a great trade union, which claims to have assumed all its
responsibilities, but which does not confuse its wishes with reality''
Caller: I would like to speak to Mr Séguy. My name is Duvauchel. l am the
director of the Sud Aviation factory at
Duvauchel: ''Good morning, Mr General Secretary. ! would like to know what you
think of the fact that for the last four days I have been sequestrated,
together with about 20 other managerial staff, inside the Sud Aviation factory
at Nantes'' Séguy: ''Has anyone raised a hand against you?''
Duvauchel: ''No. But I am prevented from leaving, despite the fact that the
general manager of the firm has intimated that the firm was prepared to make
positive proposals as soon as free access to its factory could be resumed, and
first of all to its managerial staff'' Séguy: “Have you asked to leave the
factory?''
Duvauchel: ''Yes!''
Séguy: “Was permission refused?''
Duvauchel: ''Yes!''
Séguy
:''Then I must refer you to the declaration I made yesterday at the CGT'S press
conference. I stated that I disapproved of such activities. We are taking the
necessary steps to see they are not repeated.''
But enough
is enough. The Revolution itself will doubtless be denounced by the Stalinists
as a provocation! By way of an epilogue it is worth recording that at a packed
meeting of revolutionary students, held at the Mutuality on Thursday 9 May, a
spokesman of theTrotskyist organization Communiste Internationalists could
think of nothing better to do than call on the meeting to pass a resolution
calling on Séguy to call a general strike!!!
This has
undoubtedly been the greatest revolutionary upheaval in
Virtually every layer of French society has been involved to some extent or
other. Hundreds of thousands of people of all ages have discussed every aspect
of life in packed-out, non-stop meetings in every available schoolroom and
lecture hall, Boys of 14 have invaded a primary school for girls shouting
''Liberté pour les filles''. Even such traditionally reactionary enclaves as
the Faculties of Medicine and Law have been shaken from top to bottom, their
hallowed procedures and institutions challenged and found wanting. Millions
have taken a hand in making history. This is the stuff of revolution.
Under the influence of the revolutionary students, thousands began to query the
whole principle of hierarchy. The students had questioned it where it seemed
the most 'natural': in the realms of teaching and knowledge. They proclaimed
that democratic self-management was possible - and to prove it began to
practice it themselves. They denounced the monopoly of information and produced
millions of leaflets to break it. They attacked some of the main pillars of
contemporary 'civilisation': the barriers between manual workers and
intellectuals; the consumer society, the 'sanctity' of the university and of
other founts of capitalist culture and wisdom. Within a matter of days the
tremendous creative potentialities of the people suddenly erupted. The boldest
and most realistic ideas - and they are usually the same - were advocated,
argued, applied. Language, rendered stale by decades of bureaucratic mumbo-
jumbo, eviscerated by those who manipulate it for advertising purposes,
suddenly reappeared as something new and fresh. People re-appropriated it in
all its fullness. Magnificently apposite and poetic slogans emerged from the
anonymous crowd, Children explained to their elders what the function of
education should be. The educators were educated, Within a few days, young
people of 20 attained a level of understanding and a political and tactical
sense which many who had been in the revolutionary movement for 30 years or
more were still sadly lacking.
The tumultuous development of the students struggle triggered off the first
factory occupations. It transformed both the relation of forces in society and
the image, in people's minds of established leaders. It compelled the State to
institutions and of established reveal both its oppressive nature and its
fundamental incoherence. It exposed the utter emptiness of Government,
Parliament, Administration - and of ALL the political parties. Unarmed students
had forced the Establishment to drop its mask, to sweat with fear, to resort to
the police club and to the gas grenade. Students finally compelled the
bureaucratic leaderships of the 'working class organisations to reveal
themselves as the ultimate custodians of the established order.
But the revolutionary movement did still more. It fought its battles in
The present movement has shown that the fundamental contradiction of modern
bureaucratic capitalism isn't the 'anarchy of the market'. It isn't the
'contradiction between the forces of production and the property relations'.
The central conflict to which all others are related is the conflict between
order-givers (dirigeants) and order-takers (éxécutants). The insoluble
contradiction which tears the guts out of modern capitalist society is the one
which compels it to exclude people from the management of their own activities
and Which at the same time compels it to solicit their participation, without
which it would collapse. These tendencies find expression on the one hand in
the attempt of the bureaucrats to convert men into objects (by violence,
mystification, new manipulation techniques -- or 'economic' carrots' and, on
the other hand, in mankind's refusal to allow itself to be treated in this way.
The French events show clearly something that all revolutions have shown, but
which apparently has again and again to be learned anew. There is no 'inbuilt
revolutionary perspective', no 'gradual increase of contradictions', no
'progressive development of a revolutionary mass consciousness'. What are given
are the contradictions and the conflicts we have described and the fact that
modern bureaucratic society more of less inevitably produces periodic
'accidents' which disrupt its functioning These both provoke popular
intervention and provide the people with opportunities for asserting themselves
and for changing the social order. The functioning of bureaucratic capitalism
creates the conditions within which revolutionary consciousness may appear.
These conditions are an integral part of the whole alienating hierarchical and
oppressive social structure. Whenever people struggle, sooner or later they are
compelled to question the whole of that social structure. These are ideas which
many of us in Solidarity have long subscribed to. They were developed at length
in some of Paul Cardan's pamphlets. Writing in Le Monde (20 May 1968) E Morin
admits that what is happening today in France is ''a blinding resurrection: the
resurrection of that libertarian strand which seeks concilation with Marxism, in
a formula of which Socialisme ou Barbarie had provided a first synthesis
a few years ago...''. As after every verification of basic concepts in the
crucible of real events, many will proclaim that these had always been their
views. This, of course isn't true.' The point however isn't to lay claims to a
kind of copyright in the realm of correct revolutionary ideas. We welcome
converts, from whatever sources and however belated. We can't deal here at
length with what is now an important problem in France, namely the creation of
a new kind of revolutionary movement, Things would indeed have been different
if such a movement had existed, strong enough to outwit the bureaucratic
manoeuvred, alert enough day by day to expose the duplicity of the 'left'
leaderships, deeply enough implanted to explain to the workers the real meaning
of the students' struggle, to propagate the idea of autonomous strike
committees (linking up union and non-union members); of workers' management of
production and of workers' councils. Many things which could have been done
weren't done because there wasn't such a movement. The way the students' own
struggle was unleashed shows that such an organization could have played a most
impotent catalytic role without automatically becoming a bureaucratic
'leadership'. But such regrets are futile. The non-existence of such a movement
is no accident, If it had been formed during the previous period it certainly
wouldn't have been the kind of movement of which we are speaking, Even taking
the 'best' of the small organizations -- and multiplying its numbers a
hundredfold - wouldn't have met the requirements of the current situation. When
confronted with the test of events all the 'left' groups just continued playing
their old gramophone records, Whatever their merits as depositories of the cold
ashes of the revolution - a task they have now carried out for several decades
- they proved incapable of snapping out of their old ideas and routines,
incapable of learning or of forgetting anything.
The new revolutionary movement will have to be built from the new elements
(students and workers) who have understood the real significance of current
events. The revolution must step into the great political void revealed by the
crisis of the old society. It must develop a voice, a face, a paper - and it
must do it soon. We can understand the reluctance of some students to form such
an organization. They feel there is a contradiction between action and thought,
between spontaneity and organization. Their hesitation is fed by the whole of
their previous experience, They have seen how thought could become sterilizing
dogma, organization become bureaucracy or lifeless ritual, speech become a
means of mystification, a revolutionary idea become a rigid and stereotyped programme.
Through their actions, their boldness, their reluctance to consider long-term
aims, they had broken out of this straight-jacket. But this isn't enough.
Moreover many of them had sampled the traditional 'left' groups. In all their
fundamental aspects these groups remain trapped within the ideological and
organizational frameworks of bureaucratic capitalism. They have programmes
fixed once and for all, leaders who utter fixed speeches, whatever the changing
reality around them, organizational forms which mirror those of existing
society. Such groups reproduce within their own ranks the division between
order-takers and order-givers, between those who 'know' and those who don't,
the separation between scholastic pseudo-theory and real life. They would even
like to impose this division into the working class, whom they all aspire to
lead, because (and I was told this again and again) "the workers are only
capable of developing a trade union consciousness''.
But these students are wrong. One doesn't get beyond bureaucratic organization
by denying all organization. One doesn't challenge the sterile rigidity of
finished programmes by refusing to define oneself in terms of aims and methods.
One doesn't refute dead dogma by the condemnation of all theoretical
reflection. The students and young workers can't just stay where they are. To
accept these 'contradictions' as valid and as something which cannot be
transcended is to accept the essence of bureaucratic capitalist ideology. It is
to accept the prevailing philosophy and the prevailing reality. It is to
integrate the revolution into an established historical order. if the
revolution is only an explosion lasting a few days (or weeks), the established
order - whether it knows it or not - will be able to cope. What is more - at a
deep level class society even needs such jolts. This kind of 'revolution'
permits class society to survive by compelling it to transform and adapt
itself. This is the real danger today. Explosions which disrupt the imaginary
world in which alienated societies tend to live -- and bring them momentarily
down to earth help them eliminate outmoded methods of domination and evolve new
and more flexible ones. Action or thought? For revolutionary socialists the
problem is not to make a synthesis of these two preoccupations of the
revolutionary students. It is to destroy the social context in which such false
alternatives find root.
This
version taken from the website: Class Against Class